1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus including an application and an application platform, which is a control program for operating the application, and to an image forming method.
2. Description of the Related Art
The process color inks, or C (cyan), M (magenta), Y (yellow), and K (black) inks, are generally used in the analog printing industry. When certain colors that cannot be reproduced by the CMYK model, such as gold colors and silver colors, skin tones, pastel colors, corporate colors used by companies, and so on, are to be attractively and accurately reproduced, spot color inks, created by ink companies using unique formulas, can be used.
Meanwhile, in the digital printing industry, although printing using only CMYK toners was once mainstream, image forming apparatuses in which fifth and sixth toners can be installed have been seeing development in recent years. Hence, printing techniques that, like the analog printing industry, make use of spot color toners have come into demand.
However, PDL compliant with spot color toners, dedicated DTP applications, RIP controllers, and so on are necessary in order to print via a digital printer using spot color toners, and thus cannot be easily utilized by users. Note that “PDL” is an acronym of “Page Description Language”, “DTP” is an acronym of “Desk Top Publishing”, and “RIP” is an acronym of “Raster Image Processor”.
Furthermore, a rendering method compliant with spot color toners, which are not CMY halftone toners, has yet to be established.